My first post...

So begins (or more accurately...continues) "My 56 Buick" journey.  My goal is to educate, motivate and possibly entertain through the adventure I will have restoring the first car I bought almost 30 years ago, a 1956 Buick Special, AND convert it to run on compressed natural gas.

First the background...
It was 1983, I was 16 years old, living in Wisconsin and eagerly looking to buy my first car.  Unfortunately my budget was not much because I was in high school and my only income came from my job at McDonald's.  As I tell the story of my quest for restoration I will give some flashbacks to some of the adventures I had finding and owning My 56 Buick.  To get quickly to the point here is a picture of me with My 56 Buick shortly after I bought it...

Don't laugh at the haircut and my sense of style and don't be fooled by the shiny paint and apparent good condition of the body.  The paint is actually a chalky pink, but looks almost red when wet.  The rocker panels panels are completely rusted away from the Wisconsin road salt and my leg is hiding a hole rusted in the bumper.  But at least it ran (with a little tinkering now and then.)

Where we are now...
Fast forward to 2010.  My travels with the Air Force have ended after 20 years and I am now ready to retrieve My 56 Buick.  "Greta", as I call her, has been waiting patiently in a barn in Wisconsin for all these years.  A good friend of the family charged me only $10 a month for storage, so the $2,000 invested is well worth it.  I am now settled in the panhandle of Florida so it is time to retrieve her.  Here is a picture of Greta pulled out of  the barn and rinsed off....

The paint is black primer and lots of mice had made it home for many years.  Notice the hole in the bumper is still there.

Where are we going...
I have no desire to restore My 56 Buick to original condition.  I just want to have it look nice and have fun driving it.  Silver is my favorite color.  A Google search has found an awesome picture of approximately where I want to go...a 1956 Buick Roush Special...

Now for the zinger...I want to use Compressed Natural Gas as the fuel source.  There are two main reasons motivating this change from gasoline: the high price of oil and my goal for energy independence. 

That is enough for my first post...you get the gist of this story.
(updated 6/3 with hyperlinks)